Declining Benefits of Conquest?
Economic Development and Territorial Claims in the Americas and Europe
Shawn E. Rowan and Paul R. Hensel
Department of Political Science
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-2230
phensel@icow.org
Abstract: We analyze the recent debate over the possibility that economic development renders
territorial expansion obsolete or inefficient in today’s world economy. We identify four
competing hypotheses about the possible impact of development. Unlike past studies in this
area, we test these hypotheses using territorial claims rather than militarized interstate disputes,
in order to capture an important side of territorial expansion that has been overlooked until now.
Our results suggest that economic development has not had as great an impact on territorial
expansionism as many authors on each side of this debate have argued; development appears to
have decreased the origins of territorial claims before World War II, with little impact on claims
since then or on the militarization of territorial claims in any era. Results for counterexplanations that emphasize specific types of territory or political democracy are also mixed at
best. We conclude by discussing implications of our work for future research in this area.
Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Peace Science Society (International), Houston,
November 2004. This research was supported by National Science Foundation grant #SES0079421. All opinions and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors.
“The land constitutes by far the greatest, most important, and the most durable
part of the wealth of every extensive country.”
Adam Smith (1776/2000, p. 277)
“New territories and trades may raise profits even in a country advancing in
riches.”
Adam Smith (1776/2000, p. 107)
A lively debate in the security studies community addresses whether economic
development has rendered military conquest obsolete in the modern world economy. Many
scholars have suggested that economic development reduces militarized conflict, typically
arguing that trade or development provide states with less costly means of obtaining economic
resources than militarized force offers through the conquest of territory (Angell 1914;
Rosecrance 1986, 1999; Mousseau 2000). However, most empirical studies on this topic have
been unable to address the topic directly, typically examining the relationship between
development and militarized conflict in general -- when the primary theoretical concern is with
attempts to acquire territory as a means of economic advancement. Armed conflict to replace
another state’s regime, or to punish another state’s support for cross-border rebel groups, is of
little relevance to the question of whether development has made territorial gains an inefficient
or obsolete means for economic gain.
We argue that the impact of economic development and the benefits of conquest can be
studied most appropriately by focusing on territorial claims, where nation-states explicitly seek
to acquire specific territory (whether through the use of force or through other means), rather
than by including all militarized conflict. As a result, we seek to investigate the effect of
economic development on the origins and management of territorial claims, using data on
territorial claims from the Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) project.
1
We begin by reviewing the existing literature on the effects of economic development on
conquest, and by specifying the hypotheses associated with the various sides of the debate. We
then develop and execute a research design that allows us to test these various hypotheses more
appropriately than has been possible with past work in this area. Our results suggest that the
conventional wisdom on economic development -- that states tend to seek territorial expansion as
they develop -- is not supported by the evidence of the past two centuries. A liberal economic
alternative, suggesting that increasing development actually reduces territorial expansionism, is
supported for the pre-Cold War era but not for the most recent historical period. There is little
evidence that the impact of development on territorial expansion is limited to certain types of
territory, as some have suggested, and the impact of political democracy on expansionism seems
to vary over time. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for the scholarly
debate over development and conquest, and by suggesting directions for future research.
Theoretical Development
The potential relationship between a nation-state’s level of economic development and its
propensity toward conquest has occupied scholars of international relations for centuries. Over
the course of these centuries, a number of general arguments regarding the effect of economic
development on territorial conquest have emerged, each of which suggests hypotheses that can
be evaluated empirically.
The Conventional Wisdom: Conquest Enriches States
The oldest belief about the relationship between economic development and territorial
conquest has its roots in the earliest forms of traditional realism, such as Thucydides (1954) and
2
Sun Tzu (1988). This line of argument centers on the necessary position that territory holds for a
state in achieving and maintaining power. The cultures of both ancient Greece (Thucydides
1954) and ancient China (Sun Tzu 1988; Tin-bor Hui 2004) recognized territorial expansion as a
necessary means of increasing economic wealth, power, and security (through the creation of
buffer zones and forward basing areas for both land and sea powers).
Beyond the ancient Greeks and Chinese, this belief that territorial expansion was
necessary for a state to increase its power formed the “conventional wisdom” for leaders,
military strategists, and statesmen prior to the twentieth century (Smith 1776/2000, Angell 1914;
Morgenthau 1966). Even liberal economist Adam Smith (1776/2000: 107) recognized the
economic benefits of territorial expansion by economically developed states: “[t]he acquisition
of new territory, or of new branches of trade, may sometimes raise the profits of stock, and with
them, the interest of money, even in a country which is fast advancing in the acquisition of
riches.”1 Similarly, Angell (1914: vii) argued that what caused states to fear their neighbors was
“the universal assumption that a nation, in order to find outlets for expanding population and
increasing industry, or simply to ensure the best conditions possible for its people, is necessarily
pushed to territorial expansion and the exercise of political force against others.”
This line of argument was also expressed by political realists at the time. Angell (1914:
176) addresses his realist critic Mahan’s argument that it was important for America to increase
its naval and military power in order to acquire colonial possessions since:
[c]ommercial and industrial predominance forces a nation to seek markets, and,
where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderating
force, the ultimate expression of which is possession […] an inevitable link in a
chain of logical sequences: industry, markets, control, navy bases.
1
Admittedly, economies that were considered “advanced” in the eighteenth century were quite different than those
that are typically considered advanced in the twenty-first. Nonetheless, this argument here was largely accepted as
the conventional wisdom for quite some time.
3
Five decades later, Morgenthau (1966) noted that territorial expansion as a means for military
and economic ends was the conventional wisdom of many leaders and diplomats in the
international system, even among developed states.
Morgenthau identified the contents of
territory -- most notable food supplies and raw materials -- as central components of national
power, and argued that it was the need to control access to raw materials that led to the territorial
expansion of developed states, especially through the acquisition of colonies. As technology,
especially military technology, progresses, the need for raw materials increases, so Morgenthau
(1966:115) implies that development leads to territorial expansion due to “the increas[ed]
mechanization of warfare, which since the industrial revolution has proceeded at a faster pace
than in all preceding history, national power has become more and more dependent upon the
control of raw materials in peace and war.”
This general expectation is also consistent with arguments such as Choucri and North’s
lateral pressure theory. Choucri and North (1975, 1989) essentially argued that increases in a
state’s population and economic development create ever-increasing demands for scarce
resources. Once these resource demands outstrip the domestic supply, the state may be forced to
acquire them elsewhere -- perhaps through the acquisition of new territory or colonies. Choucri
and North’s initial research on the great powers before World War I revealed some evidence of
such a pattern, particularly with respect to colonial expansion, although Zuk (1985) found less
support when considering these powers’ supplies of and demands for specific resources.
This conventional wisdom can be summarized in our first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1 (Conventional Wisdom): Increasing economic development increases the
likelihood that a state will pursue territorial expansion.
4
Challenge #1: Conquest is Inefficient for Developed States
Numerous scholars have challenged the conventional wisdom on development from a
liberal political and economic perspective.
This perspective generally suggests that
development, rather than pushing states to expand outward, actually has a pacifying effect. This
impact of economic development on conflict stems not from what economically developed states
stand to gain from conquest (as in the above arguments), but instead from what developed states
potentially lose by embarking on expansion and conquest. Liberal scholars argue that military
conquest is an inefficient and costly means for a state to achieve economic resources, and that
economically developed states can achieve wealth more efficiently through other strategies such
as increased trade or economic interdependence (Angell 1914; Rosecrance 1986).
For example, Angell (1914: viii) argued that:
[…] military power is socially and economically futile, and can have no relation
to the prosperity of the people exercising it; that it is impossible for one nation to
seize by force the wealth or trade of another – to enrich itself by subjugating, or
imposing its will by force on another; that in short, war, even when victorious,
can no longer achieve those aims for which peoples strive. […] Thus the wealth
of conquered territory remains in the hands of the population of such territory.
Angell (1914: 27-30) offered six “theorems” to explain the futility of military conquest for
economic gains: (1) a state cannot destroy the international trade of a competing state, because
destroying a competitor also destroys a (potential) buyer; (2) war causes the destruction of
financial markets and capital flight; (3) a conqueror can not exact tribute from a conquered
people, especially those of another developed state, due to nationalism; (4) the conqueror is
unable to absorb the trade of the conquered state, nor can it fare better in international economic
competition; (5) political power does not condition economic wealth – otherwise small states
such as Belgium and the Netherlands would not be wealthy; and (6) colonies cannot be owned
but are instead independent nations – attempting to control colonies is too costly.
5
More recently, Rosecrance (1986) argues that states can either use military force or
economic policies to achieve economic goals. Lesser-developed states will find it less costly to
resort to force than developed states, since developed states could lose potential gains from trade
and interdependence. Rosecrance (1986) argues that once a state reaches a certain level of
development, it becomes a “trading state” – abandoning the use of militarized force as a strategy
of achieving economic goals, and resorting instead to trading relationships and interdependence
(although not always in a cooperative fashion) to achieve economic ends.2 Furthermore, Angell
(1914: 74) argues, military power and conquest are useless to developed states because:
[The Market] is a place where things are bought and sold, and one operation
is impossible without the other […] As between economically highly-organized
nations a customer must also be a competitor, a fact which bayonets cannot alter.
To the extent to which they destroy him as a competitor, they destroy him,
speaking generally, and largely as a customer.
This liberal line of argument is reflected in the second hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2 (Liberal): Increasing economic development reduces the likelihood that states will
pursue territorial expansion.
Challenge #2: Economic versus Strategic Benefits of Conquest
A relatively recent development in this debate is the argument that economic
development is different in the post World War II era due to higher levels of technology,
communication, and improvement in human capital. Developed states begin to move into a postindustrial phase of development, where they surpass the “trading state” to become “virtual
states.” Land is not a necessary or even important factor of production for the “virtual state,” but
instead capital mobility and highly skilled labor are the most important, especially in the sectors
2
To both Angell and Rosecrance, the success of “trading states” like Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland
demonstrated the uselessness of military force (since these countries did not possess any large standing army or
navy) and political power in favor of economic power in the forms of trade and finance.
6
of research and development and information technology (Rosecrance, 1999). These sectors of
the economy cannot be easily taken by occupying a territory, especially since labor and capital
are highly mobile in the “virtual state” (Rosecrance 1999).
Brooks (1999) argues similarly that the “globalization of production” resulting from high
levels of economic development makes conquest for economic goals futile. Brooks (1999)
argues that developed states locate links in the chain of production within different nation-states.
No longer is it common for a country to be entirely self-sufficient in the production of all or most
of its industrial goods. Brooks (1999) argues that even though Liberman (1993, 1996) provided
compelling evidence for the benefits of conquering a developed state, such a conqueror, whether
ruthless or not, would not find much use in taking a territory by force to gain industrial plants
that can only produce parts to an industrial good that is finished in another country.
In short, some claim that economic development renders the use of military force and
conquest obsolete, for economic gains. This is not the same as the all-encompassing idealist
view of earlier liberal scholars, such as Angell (1914). These contemporary liberal scholars
generally accept that militarized force is still relevant for less-developed states, and may be
relevant for certain purposes even among developed states. Instead, land (and the primary goods
that can be extracted from it) is no longer an important factor of production for highly developed
states; because of this declining utility for land, developed states will not engage in the costly use
of force to obtain economically important territory (Brooks 1999; Rosecrance 1999). However,
developed states might still become involved in disputes over territory -- and might even resort
to military force in these disputes -- for ethnic, strategic, or other reasons (Rosecrance 1999).
These arguments are reflected in the following hypothesis:
7
Hypothesis 3 (Type of Territory): Increasing economic development reduces the likelihood of
pursuing territorial expansion with respect to economically valuable territory, although not for
other territory.
Challenge #3: Regime Type and The Efficiency of Conquest
The liberal perspective on development is not without its own critics,. Particularly in the
past decade, a number of scholars have argued that conquest can indeed be an effective source of
riches, even in today’s world economy (e.g., Liberman 1993, 1996, 2000; Brooks 1999;
Mastanduno 2000; Tin-Bor Hui 2004). For example, Liberman (1993, 1996, 2000) uses
comparative case studies to reveal the success that developed states, especially Nazi Germany,
have had in conquering, occupying, and extracting resources from other developed states.
Liberman (1993, 1996, 2000), Mastanduno (2000) and Brooks (1999) argue that economic
development alone does not necessarily prevent conquest, and in fact, may make conquest easier
if a state is highly developed. Liberman (1996) goes further to argue that industrialized,
developed states can pose tempting targets for conquest to countries that have the capacity to
conquer such countries.
The capacity that is necessary to exploit developed states, these scholars argue, is the
conqueror’s willingness to use cruel and ruthless tactics (Liberman 1993, 1996, 2000;
Mastanduno 2000; Tin-Bor Hui 2004). Only conquerors willing to implement ruthless tactics in
suppressing rebellions (due to nationalism) and strikes (which lower productivity) are capable of
exploiting a developed state. For these types of conquerors, the very factors of economic
development that liberals argue make conquest harder (communications technology and
specialized labor forces) can make occupation and exploitation easier for the occupier by
8
lowering the costs of surveillance and repression (Liberman 1996). Additionally, Liberman
(1996) argues that a developed state, with a highly specialized labor force (one that is not tied to
the land), can be easy for a ruthless leader to keep productive by controlling the food supply,
therefore creating a “work or starve” atmosphere.
This line of argument suggests that economic development on its own does not prevent
conquest, but that a state’s regime type makes an important difference. A highly developed
country under the leadership of a ruthless dictator would be much more likely to engage in
territorial expansion than an equivalent leader in a democratic political system, which would be
less likely to take the ruthless actions that would be needed for success. This suggests the
following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 4 (Regime Type): Political democracy, rather than economic development, reduces
the likelihood that states will pursue territorial expansion.
Previous Research Findings
Past research has offered varying levels of support for the above hypotheses. Previous
quantitative studies have found that higher levels of economic development -- both alone and in
combination with other factors such as trade -- reduce the probability of militarized conflict
between two states (Mandel 1980; Tir and Diehl 1998; Hegre 2000a, 2000b; Mousseau 2000).
Additionally, several studies suggest that the pacifying effect of economic development is
conditional on democracy (Mousseau et al, 2003) or the level of industrialization versus
specialization in services (Hegre 2000b). Even though most of these studies have tended to
support the liberal arguments, they suffer from several limitations that we attempt to overcome.
9
One important limitation of the existing research on this topic is its restricted spatialtemporal domain. Most quantitative studies (e.g., Hegre 2000a, 2000b; Mousseau 2000) focus
on the post-World War II period. This limitation is necessary due to data restrictions, as few
reliable figures can be found for trade or development in earlier periods. Yet this time frame is
largely limited to the Cold War era, leading to questions about whether the observed results are
really an artifact of the Cold War, bipolarity, the nuclear era, or a unique phase in the world
economy -- echoing criticism of early work on the democratic peace (see Farber and Gowa,
1995). We attempt to extend the study of development back to a much earlier period, in order to
acquire as complete an understanding of development and territorial expansionism as possible.
Another limitation with existing research is the dependent variable. For example,
Mousseau (2000, 2003) and Hegre (2000a) examine the outbreak of militarized interstate
disputes between two adversaries. While the resulting analyses can tell us much about the
influence of development, trade, democracy, or other factors on patterns of militarized conflict in
general, they are unable to address the debate over the declining value of territorial conquest.
Militarized disputes can arise for many reasons that have nothing to do with territorial conquest;
examples include attempts to overthrow a neighboring regime, pursuit of rebels across a border,
or a variety of non-territorial demands on another state.3
A step in the right direction is a recent study by Hegre (2000b), who focuses on
militarized disputes over territorial issues (as measured by the COW project’s Militarized
Interstate Dispute data set). This approach rightly excludes militarized disputes that did not
involve territorial issues, which is a great improvement -- but it still excludes attempts to acquire
territory through non-militarized means. While both scholars and leaders should be most
3
In Mousseau’s defense, he was not specifically testing the effects of development on territorial conquest, but rather
seeking to explain the pacifying effects of development, in general, as it relates to the broader democratic peace
literature. This does limit the extent to which his findings are relevant to the present debate, though.
10
concerned with militarized conflict, the underlying theoretical debate here is over attempts to
expand one’s territory, and even peaceful attempts to do so should be relevant to evaluating the
impact of development in the modern world economy. In the rest of this paper, we consider all
attempts to acquire territory (whether through peaceful or militarized means), arguing that this
approach should offer the most meaningful evaluation of the hypotheses specified above.
Research Design
We evaluate the above hypotheses using data drawn from the Issue Correlates of War
(ICOW) project on territorial claims (Hensel 2001, 2003). A territorial claim involves explicit
statements by official government representatives of at least one nation-state claiming
sovereignty over territory that is currently owned or administered by at least one other nationstate. Table 1 presents a list of all qualifying claims to territory in the Americas and Western
Europe between 1816-2001, which are used in the analyses in this paper.
Dependent Variables
Analyses are run at the nation-state and dyadic levels of analysis. The state level begins
with all states in the Americas and Western Europe, as identified by the Correlates of War
(COW) project’s interstate system membership list, and is used to test hypotheses regarding the
development level of states and their propensity to begin territorial claims. The dyadic level of
analysis examines the behavior of states during such territorial claims, focusing on their
propensity to use militarized conflict to achieve their claim-related goals.
The first state-level dependent variable, used in Tables 2 and 3, is the initiation of a
territorial claim. This dichotomous variable indicates whether or not a given nation-state began a
11
new ICOW territorial claim during the year of observation. To avoid muddling the results by
including cases where a given state was the target of a claim by another state -- which have little
to do with a fair evaluation of the development thesis examined in this paper -- we only code this
for claims where the state acts as the claim challenger, or the state that seeks to acquire territory
that is currently owned and/or administered by the target state.
A second state-level dependent variable -- also used in Tables 2 and 3 -- is a subset of the
first, and refers only to the origins of a claim to territory with economic value. The ICOW
project has collected data on numerous attributes of claimed territories, one of which is the
presence of valuable economic resources on the territory in question (or at least the belief by the
claimants that such resources are present). Such resources represent the sort of economic value
that is relevant in the scholarly literature being examined here, so claims with this economic
value are examined separately from the larger population of all territorial claims, in order to test
Hypothesis 3.
The third and final dependent variable, used in Tables 4 and 5, is dyadic and measures the
militarization of an ongoing territorial claim. This variable is based on the Militarized Interstate
Dispute data set (Jones, Bremer, & Singer, 1996). Hensel (2003) obtained the MID3 data on all
militarized disputes and adapted it for consistency with the ICOW territorial claims data, by
examining historical sources for every MID that occurred between two states that were involved
in an ICOW territorial claim. Each MID was then coded to identify whether or not it involved an
attempt to alter the status quo for this particular territorial claim. In many cases, the COW
coding for territorial revisionism was correct, but in other cases the COW coding referred to a
different claim (such as a claim to territory in a different region or a different portion of the same
border) or to a situation that ICOW does not code as a territorial claim (such as a maritime issue)
12
and a few cases turned out to involve explicit territorial issues that were not coded by COW. As
a result, there is some difference between this ICOW coding of MID issues and the official COW
coding, but we are confident that this gives the most accurate depiction of the connection
between territorial issues and militarized conflict that is currently available. The dependent
variable in Tables 4 and 5 uses this modified MID data to indicate for each year of each ongoing
territorial claim whether the claimants became involved in at least one militarized dispute over
that specific territorial claim during the year of observation.
Independent Variables
We use the economic development of each state as the key independent variable for this
paper. Where our analyses call for a continuous measure of development, this variable is
measured as the total energy consumption per capita for each state in the Americas and Western
Europe. The energy consumption and total population data to calculate this measure were
obtained from the COW project’s National Material Capabilities data set. While energy
consumption per capita is not a perfect measure of development, for most of the period of our
study it measures the energy demands by both industry and consumers, which are both closely
associated with a developed economy; this measure is also highly correlated with more
traditional measures of development such as GDP per capita.4
Several of our analyses require the creation of a dichotomous version of the development
measure. Because of the changing nature of the world economy, it is impossible to create a
4
While the traditional measure of economic development is GDP per capita, we use energy consumption per capita.
We chose this measure since data on energy consumption from the COW project were available for a greater time
span than data on GDP per capita. COW energy consumption data are available for most states throughout their
period of membership in the COW interstate system (dating back to 1816), while GDP data are not available for
most states in the 19th century at all or (in many cases) until after World War II. Perhaps the most comprehensive
collection of GDP data, that collected by Angus Maddison (2003), is missing data for thousands of annual
observations that are available in the COW energy data, although their results are highly correlated ( r = .86) across
the entire span of the COW interstate system. Tir and Diehl (1998) used energy consumption for a similar purpose.
13
single threshold of development that could accurately measure the development levels of states
in both the early 19th and late 20th centuries; a useful threshold for the latter period would
identify no state as developed for broad swaths of history, while a threshold for the earlier period
would identify nearly all states as developed in recent years. As a result, we used three different
thresholds, increasing over time as the world economy advanced.
A state is coded
dichotomously as being developed if its energy consumption per capita ratio is at least 1.0 for
observations between 1816-1899, at least 2.0 for observations between 1900-1945, and at least
3.0 for observations after 1945.5
In order to evaluate Hypothesis 4, which suggests that political regime type plays a more
important role than economic development, we measure the level of democracy of each state.
This variable is measured using the Polity (Jaggers and Gurr, 1995) index of institutionalized
democracy. This measure is a score between 0 and 10 that accounts for various aspects of
democratic regimes; following general practice in the international relations literature, we code
states as democratic if their value on this index is six or greater. For the multivariate analysis in
Table 5, we code this measure as joint democracy within the dyad rather than just the challenger
state, indicating whether or not both states meet this threshold as political democracies.
In the multivariate analyses of claim origins (presented in Table 3), we control for the
effects of two other variables besides development and democracy. First, we consider each
state’s total population, which is important to lateral pressure theory as a factor influencing
expansion (see Choucri and North 1975, 1999; Tir and Diehl 1998). This variable is taken
directly from the COW National Material Capabilities data set. Furthermore, we consider the
relative militarization of each state, using the COW capabilities data to divide its military
5
This procedure produces a list with high face validity for much of the historical era, with the exception that oil
producing states are misleadingly coded as developed (in the Americas and Western European regions examined in
the present paper, this involves Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago).
14
personnel by its total population. It might reasonably be expected that a state with a high
militarization value would be more prone to territorial expansion for reasons besides economic
development, so we control for this factor in order to avoid drawing a misleading conclusion
about the impact of development.
The multivariate analyses of militarization in Table 5 use several additional independent
variables. The first is relative capabilities, which have been suggested by a variety of research to
play an important role in decisions to use militarized force. Following Hensel (2001), we use
two dummy variables to identify several categories of relative capabilities, based on the
relationship between the challenger and target state in a given territorial claim. Using each
state’s CINC (Composite Index of National Capabilities) index as provided by the COW
capabilities data set, if the stronger claimant has less than three times the overall capabilities of
the weaker, the adversaries are coded as roughly equal, which is indicated with one dummy
variable. A second dummy indicates whether the challenger is substantially stronger than the
target state (i.e., greater than a 3:1 advantage in overall capabilities), leaving out the referent
category where the target state is substantially stronger than the challenger.
The second independent variable we use is that of territory salience. We use the ICOW
salience index (Hensel 2001) to measure the salience of the territory involved in each claim. The
index for salience has a range in value from 0-12, with twelve being the most salient (possessing
all six salience indicators for each state) and zero being the lowest (Hensel 2001). We expect
that salience will have a positive effect on the likelihood of a MID between two states engaged in
a territorial claim, as seen in recent research on this topic (Hensel 2001).
Finally, the militarization analyses in Table 5 will employ a binary time-series crosssection (BTSCS) approach, so we include three natural cubic splines and a variable for “peace
15
years” (years since the last militarized dispute within the current claim) to control for the
temporal dependence inherent in cross-section-time-series models (Beck, Katz, and Tucker 1998;
Tucker 1999). As Beck, Katz, and Tucker argue, many earlier analyses relying on logit models
could not account for the temporal dependence of their data, and therefore had standard errors of
their coefficients that were highly underestimated producing invalid inferences. A BTSCS
model that incorporates cubic splines and a temporal dependence control variable alleviates the
problems with estimating time-series-cross-section models with binary dependent variables.
Empirical Analysis
In this section, we report the results from our empirical analyses. We begin with both
crosstabs and multivariate state-level analyses on the relationship between economic
development and the origin of territorial claims in the Americas and Western Europe from 18162001. We then present both crosstabs and multivariate dyadic-level analyses on the relationship
between economic development and the militarization of territorial claims.
We split the data analysis into two historical eras: 1816-1945 and 1946-2001. This offers
several benefits. First, the latter period overlaps with most past research on this general topic,
which allows for a more direct comparison of our results with past work. Perhaps more
important, though, this temporal disaggregation allows us to determine whether the impact of
development has changed over time with the world economy. As discussed earlier, scholars such
as Rosecrance have argued that the post-WWII era has seen the emergence of trading states and
ultimately virtual states, as the world economy has changed substantially. If these arguments are
correct, then there should be a qualitative difference in the nature of economic development
between the late twentieth century and in the early nineteenth century, and a corresponding
16
qualitative difference in the impact of this development on international behavior; aggregated
analyses across this entire period would be unlikely to produce meaningful results.
State-Level Analysis of Claim Origins
Table 2 presents a series of crosstabs to address the relationship between economic
development and the origin of territorial claims. This table is divided into three sections, each of
which is relevant to one or more of our hypotheses. Table 2A focuses on development and all
territorial claims, and is meant to address Hypotheses 1 and 2. Table 2B focuses on development
and claims to economically valuable territory only, and is meant to address Hypothesis 3.
Finally, Table 2C focuses on political democracy and economically valuable territorial claims,
and is meant to address Hypothesis 4.
As Table 2A reveals, between 1816-1945, there were a total of 3469 state-years in the
Americas and Western Europe in which states could have begun territorial claims. States began
new claims in 112 of these years (with multiple claims beginning in some years), including 13 of
the 425 years when states were considered developed (3.1%) and 99 of 3044 less developed
(3.3%). This difference in the probability of beginning a new claim is not statistically significant
(p < .83). The results are similar for the 1946-2001 period, when new claims began in 1.0% of
all years for developed states and 0.7% of all years for less developed states; these results are far
from statistical significance (p < .44). These results do not support either the realist hypothesis
that economic development increases territorial expansion or the liberal hypothesis that
development decreases the likelihood for expansion (Hypotheses 1 and 2, respectively).
Table 2B attempts to examine Hypothesis 3, which suggests that economic development
only prevents claims to economically valuable territory. As this table shows, economic
17
development has no significant impact on whether a claim is made on an economically valuable
territory or not, regardless of the time period (p < .36 and p < .25, respectively). This result is
similar to the first portion of the table, and does not support Hypothesis 3 any more than Table
1A supported Hypotheses 1 or 2. These results must be taken with caution, though. These
results are only for claims to territory located in the Americas and Western Europe and do not
include any claims to territory in Africa, Asia, or the Middle East -- which likely undercounts the
number of claims that were made (both overall and to economically valuable territories). The
results may change substantially once data collection for these other regions is completed,
although we can not say with certainty what impact this will have on the direction of the
relationship; while the relatively few developed states in nineteenth century Europe likely began
numerous claims to economically valuable territory in Africa and elsewhere, other European
colonizers such as Belgium, Portugal, and Spain were not considered developed at the time of
their colonial expansion.
Table 2C helps assess the relationship between political democracy and the origin of
territorial claims. Hypothesis 4 suggested that democratic states should be less likely to initiate
territorial claims, but this table indicates that democratic states were significantly more likely to
initiate territorial claims between 1816-1945 (p < .01), while there is no statistical difference
between democratic and non-democratic states after 1945 (p < .57). This is inconsistent with the
hypothesis in both eras.
Next, we move on to multivariate analyses at the state level of analysis to determine the
effects of economic development on the origins of territorial claims. Table 3 reports the results
from logit analyses, both for territorial claims in general (Table 3A) and claims to economically
18
valuable territory (Table 3B). As with Table 2, each analysis is disaggregated into the 18161945 and 1946-2001 periods.
Regarding the origin of any territorial claims, Table 3A reveals that the development of
the challenger is both negative and significant (p < .01) in the period of 1816-1945, but not in the
period 1946-2001. This would suggest that economic development, ceteris paribus, decreased
the likelihood that a challenger would make a territorial claim in the period of 1816-1945, but
not after (when the coefficient was positive but not significant). With respect to substantive
significance, based on the coefficient for development pre-1946, for each unit increase in
development, a challenger would have been .56 times as likely to initiate a claim, all else being
held constant. Based on these results, Hypothesis 1 is not supported for either time period, but
Hypothesis 2 is supported for 1816-1945.
Political democracy has had different effects on territorial claims over the two different
time periods. In the period 1816-1945, democracy of the challenger was both positive and
significant (p < .01), suggesting that the more democratic a challenger was, the more likely it
would be to make a territorial claim. In fact, holding all else constant, an increase of one point
on the democracy score of a challenger, pre-1946, would result in that challenger being 2.46
times as likely to initiate a territorial claim. This evidence suggests that we should reject
Hypothesis 4 for the period of 1816-1945. However, in the post-1945 era, Hypothesis 4 is
generally supported, since the coefficient is negative and reaches minimal levels of statistical
significance (p < .10).6 In the post-1945 era, an increase of one point on the democracy score, all
else constant, makes a state .40 times as likely to initiate a territorial claim.
6
The significance of democracy in Model 2 might be questioned, though, since the overall model has a poor fit
(Chi-Square 5.65, 4 d.f., p < .23).
19
Finally, Table 3A indicates that a state’s total population significantly increases its
likelihood of beginning a territorial claim (p < .01) for the period 1816-1945, although it does not
have a systematic impact after 1945. This suggests that at least until the Cold War, population
had a positive effect on territorial expansion, consistent with lateral pressure theory. A state’s
militarization level (measured by the proportion of the population in the military) does not have a
significant impact in either era.
Table 3B examines the effects of the same independent variables on the origin of claims
to economically valuable territory only, in order to evaluate Hypothesis 3.
Economic
development has a negative and significant coefficient for the pre-1946 era (p < .01), and a
positive but insignificant coefficient for the post-1945 era. These results support Hypothesis 3
for the pre-1946 era only, in that economic development had a negative effect on economically
valuable territorial claims. By looking at economically valuable territory in Western Europe and
the Americas only, we see that a unit change in the energy consumption per capita of a potential
challenger made it .54 times as likely to initiate a claim for economically valuable territory, all
else being constant. Again, this sample does not include claims on the continents of Africa or
Asia, so these results may severely underrepresent the actual number of claims.
As before, democracy has a positive and significant coefficient for the pre-1946 era (p <
.01), but an insignificant coefficient for the post-1945 era. These results provide evidence to
reject Hypothesis 4 for both of the time periods in this analysis. Lastly, we find that population,
again, has a positive and significant coefficient for the pre-1946 era (p < .10), but not a
significant coefficient for the post-1945 era. None of the variables reach conventional levels of
statistical significance for the post-1945 era, likely due to the small number of claims to
20
economically valuable territory in these regions since World War II, and the overall model
performs poorly (X2 = 4.20, 4 d.f., p < .38).
Dyadic-Level Analysis of Claim Militarization
Many scholars, especially those in the security studies arena (and most research on this
topic so far), are more concerned with militarized conflict than with diplomatic disagreements
over territory. It is this topic to which we turn next. Table 4 presents a series of crosstabs
showing the relationship between economic development and democracy of the challenger in a
territorial claim and the militarization of those claims, following the same divisions as Table 2 to
test the same hypotheses.
As Tables 4A and 4B reveal, there is no statistically significant association between the
economic development of the challenger and militarization of territorial claims, whether we
examine all claims or only those with economic value, and whether we look at claims before or
after 1945. These results do not provide any support for Hypotheses 1, 2, or 3. However, Table
4C does reveal support for Hypothesis 4, on the pacifying effects of democracy. Between 18161945 era, territorial claims with democratic challengers were less likely to experience militarized
conflict (p < .001), with claims to economically valuable territory experiencing such conflict in
1.6% of all years -- as compared to 4.6% of all years in claims with non-democratic challengers.
This relationship does not hold for the post-1945 era.
Table 5 offers a multivariate analysis of economic development and the militarization of
territorial claims, using binary time-series cross-section (BTSCS) models (Beck, Katz, & Tucker,
1998; Tucker, 1999) for each of the two time periods.7 While examining the effects of
7
The BTSCS analyses are estimated in Stata version 8 using the BTSCS utility developed by Tucker (1999).
BTSCS models were chosen over standard logit models due to the results of LR tests, as suggested by Beck, Katz,
21
development and democracy on the militarization of territorial claims, we include the control
variables of relative capabilities of the challenger and the salience of the claimed territory, as
well as controlling for temporal dependence with the peace years variable and the cubic splines
of the BTSCS model. The results indicate that neither economic development nor democracy
have a significant effect on the militarization of territorial claims for both time periods, when we
consider these other factors and the possibility of temporal dependence. The coefficients for
both of these variables are negative (as expected by Hypothesis 2 and 4) but not significant.
The results of Table 5 suggest that variables associated with the adversaries’ relative
capabilities and the issues under contention have more of an impact on whether states choose to
use military force in settling territorial claims than either democracy or economic development.
Rough parity (less than a 3:1 ratio between the relative capabilities of the stronger and weaker
side in the dyad) had a positive and significant effect on the militarization of territorial claims (p
< .01). All else being equal, militarized conflict over an ongoing territorial claim is 2.12 time
more likely in rough parity between 1816-1945, and 4.31 times more likely since 1945. At least
in the post-1945 era, conflict is also significantly more likely (p < .10) when the claim’s
challenger is substantially stronger than the target state.
The salience of the claimed territory has a positive and significant coefficient for the pre1946 era (p < .01), consistent with the expectations of the issues approach to international
politics (Hensel 2001). An increase of one point on the 0-12 salience scale for the territory being
claimed would be 1.23 times as likely to witness a militarized dispute, all else being constant.
The coefficient for salience is not significant in the post-1945 era but does have a positive sign.
and Tucker (1998). The BTSCS models reported here are random effects logit models, rather than fixed effects.
While some (e.g. Green, Kim, and Yoon 2001) advocate the use of fixed effects discrete choice models, we adopted
random effects as Beck and Katz (2001) argue, since many of the cases would be dropped from analysis in a fixed
effects model due to perfect prediction (with the fixed effect explaining everything).
22
Lastly, the peace years variable -- which counts the number of years since the most recent
militarized dispute within the territorial claim in question -- is negative and significant (p < .01)
in both models. What this reveals is that for every year without a militarized dispute between a
pair of states involved in a territorial claim, the states would be .75 and .78 times as likely to
become involved in a militarized dispute, respectively.
Discussion
Taken together, this paper’s empirical analyses offer mixed support at best for most of
the competing hypotheses regarding the effects of economic development on territorial
expansion. Hypothesis 1 encapsulated the conventional wisdom -- argued by such divergent
sources as Adam Smith, Hans Morgenthau, and Choucri and North -- that states will be more
likely to expand territorially as they develop economically. This hypothesis was not supported
by any of our analyses, either for the 1816-1945 or 1946-2001 periods. At least with respect to
claimed territory in the Americas and Western Europe, development never has a significant and
positive effect on either the origins of territorial claims or the militarization of ongoing claims.
Hypothesis 2 suggested the opposite, drawing from liberal economic arguments that
development in the modern world economy makes states less likely to pursue territorial
expansionism.
Our analyses offered greater support for this hypothesis, as economic
development significantly decreased the likelihood that a state would begin a territorial claim in
the 1816-1945 period. Development has not had a significant impact on beginning claims since
World War II, though, which is the period when most liberal arguments would expect the
negative effect to be strongest. Furthermore, development has not had a systematic impact on
the militarization of territorial claims in either time period.
23
Similarly, Hypothesis 3 suggested that development should reduce territorial
expansionism with respect to economically valuable territory, although not for other territories.
The results for this hypothesis were mixed, with development significantly reducing the
beginning of claims up to 1945, but no systematic impact after that time. This mirrors the results
for Hypothesis 2 on territorial claims in general, suggesting that development has not had a
meaningfully different impact on claims to different types of territory.
Finally, Hypothesis 4 suggested that economic development does not reduce territorial
expansionism, but that political democracy does. This hypothesis is not supported for the preCold War era, when democracy significantly increased the likelihood that a given state would
begin a new territorial claims, and democracy did not have a systematic impact on the
militarization of ongoing claims. Democracy has reduced territorial claims somewhat since
World War II, though, suggesting that this hypothesis may hold for the most recent historical era
(indeed, when its proponents would argue that its impact should have been greatest).
An important caveat to bear in mind while considering our results is the limited data on
territorial claims, since for now we only analyze claims to territory in Western Europe and the
Americas between 1816-2001. We have not studied claims to territory located in Africa, Asia, or
the Middle East, because ICOW data collection for those regions is not yet complete. Once these
regions are included in the data set, we anticipate changes in some, if not all, of these results.
Most notable would be the results pertaining to economically valuable territory. We expect that
the continents of Africa and Asia will add many more claims by developed states to
economically valuable territory during the “scramble for Africa” and the colonial era more
generally, which may weaken or reverse the finding that development reduced territorial
expansionism in that era.
24
As we have emphasized throughout, this paper has taken an exploratory approach by
testing the theories presented in the literature on economic development and territorial conquest.
As with any exploratory project, this one suggests a number of promising directions for future
research, several of which we now discuss. One potentially promising direction involves a focus
on specific economic needs that might push states toward territorial expansion. For example,
Klare (2001) posits that liberals may only be partially correct in assuming that raw materials are
not worth engaging in militarized conflict, and that certain raw materials -- notably oil, natural
gas, and water -- may be worth the costs and risks of military conflict even for highly developed
states. While the ICOW data set does not currently identify which specific resources are located
within economically valuable territory holds, or the quantity of each resource that is believed to
be present, further research could benefit from examining this subject in greater detail.8
A second direction for future research involves the addition of international trade data. A
lively debate in international relations journals over the past decade has examined the possible
pacifying (or exacerbating) effects of trade on conflict. Unfortunately, this debate has often
witnessed contrary results that vary across studies depending on the specific data sets, trade
measures, or decisions regarding missing data. This debate -- with all of its nuances and specific
disagreements to address -- lies beyond the scope of the present paper, but it would be worth
considering in a follow-up study.9
8
Along these lines, it is quite possible that a focus on individual resources could lead to different conclusions than
the aggregated analyses that we have presented here. For example, Zuk’s (1985) analysis of specific resources
provided substantially less support for the lateral pressure thesis than Choucri and North’s more general approach.
9
A preliminary analysis was done for the militarization of any territorial claim using trade data from O’Neal and
Russett (1999) and GDP per capita data from Maddison (2003). The results of this BTSCS random effects analysis
did not change the results substantially; we found that the dependence of trade of the challenger has a negative and
significant effect, while GDP per capita and the dependence of the target on trade were not significant. Salience and
rough parity were both positive and significant, while joint democracy was negative and not significant. However,
these results should be taken with caution for a number of reasons, such as the loss in observations due to the
number of missing values and limited temporal domain resulting from the trade and development data.
25
Another issue worth considering is the joint advancement of economic development and
weapons technology. Some have argued that the increasing destructive power of modern
weapons systems has rendered territorial conquest inefficient even for strategic military reasons.
For example, Zacher (2001) posits that highly developed states have highly developed military
technological capabilities – aircraft carriers, long-range bombers, jet fighters, cruise missiles, and
long range ballistic missiles – that makes the occupation of territory for forward basing and
artillery positions less important. Similarly, Waltz (1979) claims that the military technology of
the most developed of the states, mainly the great powers, makes the use of force for conquest
highly unlikely, since the costs of war for highly developed states is too high to pay for a slight
change in the status quo. Waltz (1979: 191) argues that when a state reaches a certain level of
development (power) that it no longer seeks to increase its territory through conquest, but instead
wishes only to maintain the status quo. It may be, then, that advances in military technology
should also serve to decrease the likelihood that states will pursue territorial expansion. This
possibility will be difficult to test in any meaningful way, though, and in any case it is beyond
the scope of the present paper -- but it would nonetheless be a promising avenue for future
research to consider.
In short, we believe that we have introduced a useful new approach to the study of
economic development and territorial expansionism. We are not willing to argue that we have
provided the final word on this matter; some of the conclusions from this preliminary study may
change after including claims to territory in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. There are also
other avenues for research to produce a more complete understanding of economics and
expansionism, focusing on such factors as trade levels or military technology. But we do expect
26
that this study’s approach will ultimately offer a better answer to the impact of development than
has been possible with existing work on this topic.
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29
Table 1: ICOW Territorial Claims in the Americas and Western Europe, 1816-2001
Claim
North America
Passamaquoddy Bay
St. Croix - St. John Rivers
Machias Seal Island
49th Parallel
Oregon Country
& Haro Channel
Alaska
Wrangel Island
Labrador
Florida
Texas
Mesilla Valley
Morteritos & Sabinitos
Río Grande Bancos
& El Chamizal
California - New Mexico
Fort Ross
Baja California - Sonora
Ellesmere Island
Sverdrup Islands
Hans Island
Eastern Greenland
Central America and Caribbean
Cuba
Isla de Pinos
Guantánamo Bay
Navassa Island
Môle St. Nicholas
Samaná Bay
Virgin Islands
Río Massacre
Participants
Dates
USA - UK
USA - UK
USA - Canada
USA - UK
USA - UK
USA - Spain
Spain - UK
USA - UK
Russia - UK
USA – Russia
UK - USA
Canada - USA
Canada - Russia
Canada - UK
USA - Spain
USA - Spain
USA - Mexico
USA - Mexico
Mexico - USA
Mexico - USA
Mexico - USA
USA - Mexico
Spain - Russia
Mexico - Russia
USA - Mexico
Canada - USA
Canada - Norway
Canada - Denmark
Norway - Denmark
1816 - 1817
1816 - 1842
1971 1816 - 1818
1816 - 1846
1816 - 1821
1816 - 1821
1846 - 1872
1821 - 1867
1822 – 1867
1872 - 1903
1922 - 1924
1922 - 1924
1920 - 1927
1816 - 1821
1816 - 1821
1831 - 1848
1850 - 1854
1884 - 1884
1884 - 1972
1895 - 1963
1835 - 1848
1816 - 1821
1831 - 1841
1847 - 1865
1922 - 1926
1922 - 1930
1971 1921 - 1933
USA - Spain
USA - Cuba
Cuba - USA
Haiti - USA
Haiti - USA
USA - Haiti
USA - Dom. Rep.
USA - Denmark
Haiti - Dom. Rep.
Haiti - Dom. Rep.
1848 - 1898
1909 - 1925
1960 1859 - 1914
1935 1889 - 1915
1894 - 1904
1865 - 1917
1894 - 1915
1934 - 1935
30
Quita Sueño-Roncador-Serrana
Serranilla Bank & Bajo Nuevo
San Andrés y Providencia
Clipperton Island
Río Hondo
Chiapas
Belize
Ranguana & Sapodilla (Zapotillo)
Mosquito Coast
Río Motagua
Cordillera Monte Cristo
Bolsones
Gulf of Fonseca Islands
& Conejo Island
Teotecacinte
Cayo Sur - Media Luna
Swan Islands
Mangles (Corn) Islands
Nicaragua Canal
Río Sixaola y Río Coto
Juradó
Canal Zone
South America
Goajirá-Guainía
Los Monjes
Oriente-Aguarico
Loreto
& Leticia
Apaporis
Aves Island
Colombia - USA
Nicaragua - USA
Nicaragua - Colombia
Honduras - USA
Honduras - Colombia
Honduras - Colombia
Nicaragua - Colombia
Nicaragua - Colombia
France - Mexico
Mexico - UK
Guatemala - Mexico
Guatemala - UK
Guatemala - Belize
Guatemala - UK
Guatemala - Belize
Honduras - UK
Honduras - Belize
Honduras - Guatemala
Colombia - UK
Colombia - Nicaragua
Honduras - Guatemala
Guatemala - El Salvador
El Salvador - Honduras
Honduras - El Salvador
El Salvador - Honduras
Nicaragua - Honduras
Nicaragua - Honduras
Nicaragua - Honduras
Honduras - USA
Colombia - Nicaragua
Nicaragua - USA
USA - Nicaragua
Costa Rica - Panama
Panama - Colombia
USA - Colombia
Colombia - USA
Panama - USA
1890 - 1972
1900 - 1928
1900 - 1928, 1967 1899 - 1928
1899 - 1928
1982 - 1986
1900 - 1930
1979 1897 - 1934
1831 - 1897
1868 - 1882
1868 - 1981
1981 1981 - 1981
1981 1981 - 1981
1981 1981 1831 - 1860
1900 - 1928
1899 - 1933
1935 - 1938
1899 - 1992
1899 - 1992
2000 1900 - 1906
1912 - 1961
1998 1921 - 1972
1906 - 1928
1965 - 1971
1900 - 1916
1920 - 1941
1920 - 1938
1899 - 1903
1903 - 1922
1920 - 1979
Venezuela - Colombia
Colombia - Venezuela
Ecuador - Colombia
Peru - Colombia
Peru - Colombia
Brazil - Colombia
Venezuela - Netherlands
1841 - 1922
1951 1854 - 1919
1839 - 1922
1932 - 1935
1831 - 1928
1854 - 1865
31
Essequibo
Patos Island
Amazonas
Los Roques
Corentyn/New River Triangle
Pirara
Maroni
Tumuc-Humac
Amapá
Oriente-Mainas
& Cordillera del Cóndor
Galápagos Islands
Amazonas-Caquetá
& Amazonas-Iça
Chincha Islands
Acre
Apa
& Río Paraguay Islands
Misiones
Yaguarón
Trindade Island
Chaco Boreal
Antofagasta
& Tacna-Arica
Puna de Atacama
& Los Andes
Chaco Central
Patagonia
Beagle Channel
Palena/Continental Glaciers
Río de La Plata
Falkland (Malvinas) Islands
Venezuela - UK
Venezuela - UK
Venezuela - Guyana
Venezuela - UK
Venezuela - Brazil
Netherlands - Venezuela
Netherlands - UK
Netherlands - Guyana
Suriname - Guyana
Brazil - UK
Netherlands - France
Suriname - France
Brazil - Netherlands
Portugal - France
France - Brazil
Ecuador - Peru
Ecuador - Peru
USA - Ecuador
USA - Ecuador
Ecuador - Brazil
Brazil - Ecuador
Spain - Peru
Peru - Brazil
Peru - Bolivia
Brazil - Bolivia
Paraguay - Brazil
Paraguay - Brazil
Argentina - Brazil
Uruguay - Brazil
Brazil - UK
Bolivia - Paraguay
Chile - Bolivia
Bolivia - Chile
Chile - Peru
Peru - Chile
Bolivia - Peru
Argentina - Bolivia
Chile - Argentina
Argentina - Paraguay
Chile - Argentina
Argentina - Chile
Chile - Argentina
Argentina - Uruguay
Argentina - UK
32
1841 - 1899
1951 - 1966
1966 1859 - 1942
1841 - 1928
1850 - 1856
1816 - 1966
1966 - 1975
1975 1838 - 1926
1849 - 1975
1975 1852 - 1906
1816 - 1822
1826 - 1900
1854 - 1945
1947 - 1998
1854 - 1855
1892 - 1906
1854 - 1904
1904 - 1922
1864 - 1866
1839 - 1909
1848 - 1912
1848 - 1909
1846 - 1874
1874 - 1929
1841 - 1895
1882 1826 - 1896
1878 - 1939
1848 - 1884
1884 1879 - 1884
1884 - 1929
1883 - 1936
1841 - 1941
1896 - 1904
1846 - 1878
1841 - 1903
1904 - 1985
1903 - 1998
1882 - 1973
1841 -
Northern and Western Europe
Northern Ireland
Treaty Ports
Ecrehos & Minquiers
Gibraltar
Limburg & Zeeland Flanders
Baarle Enclaves
Elten & Tudderen
Belgium
Neutral Moresnet (Altenberg)
Eupen & Malmédy
Luxembourg
Vallée des Dappes
Alsace-Lorraine (Elsass-Lothringen)
Prussian Rheinprovinz
Bavarian Palatinate (Pfalz)
Rheinhessen
Saar (Sarre)
Jussy
Savoy & Nice
Upper Savoy (Chablais-Faucigny)
Corsica
Val d'Aosta-Briga-Tenda
Neuchâtel
Kulmbach-Gersfeld-Orb
Badenese Corridor
& Germersheim Frontage
Salzburg
Leipzig-Bautzen
Hohenzollern
Homburg-Upper Hesse
Heligoland
Schleswig-Holstein
German Reunification
Ireland – UK
Ireland - UK
France - UK
Spain – UK
Netherlands – Belgium
Belgium - Netherlands
Netherlands - Belgium
Netherlands - Belgium
W.Germany - Netherlands
France - Belgium
Germany – Belgium
Belgium - Germany
Germany – Belgium
Netherlands - Belgium
France – Netherlands
France - Switzerland
Prussia - France
France – Germany
France - Prussia
France - Bavaria
France - Hesse GD
France - Germany
Germany - France
W.Germany - France
Switzerland - Sardinia
France – Italy
Italy - France
Switzerland - Italy
Switzerland - France
Italy - France
France - Italy
Switzerland - Prussia
Prussia - Bavaria
Bavaria - Baden
Bavaria - Baden
Bavaria - Baden
Austria - Bavaria
Prussia - Saxony
Württemberg - Prussia
Prussia - HesseDarmstadt
Prussia - UK
Prussia – Denmark
Prussia – Austria
Denmark - Germany
W.Germany – E.Germany
33
1922 - 1999
1927 - 1938
1886 – 1953
1816 1830 – 1839
1918 – 1920
1922 – 1940
1945 – 1959
1955 – 1963
1866 - 1867
1841 – 1919
1917 – 1919
1919 – 1940
1830 - 1839
1866 – 1867
1816 - 1862
1870 – 1871
1871 – 1919
1849 - 1871
1849 - 1871
1849 - 1871
1917 - 1920
1920 – 1935
1955 – 1957
1816 - 1816
1848 – 1860
1938 - 1943
1859 - 1860
1860 - 1860
1938 - 1943
1945 - 1947
1848 - 1857
1866 - 1866
1816 - 1832
1838 - 1840
1870 - 1870
1816 - 1816
1866 - 1866
1870 - 1870
1866 - 1866
1884 - 1890
1864 – 1864
1864 – 1866
1919 - 1920
1955 – 1972
West Berlin
Lombardy-Venetia
Papal States
Modena
Parma
Trentino-Alto Adige (South Tyrol)
Graham Island
Finnmark / Varangerfjord
Spitsbergen (Svalbard)
Aaland Islands
Finland
Karelia & Petsamo
USSR - USA
E.Germany – W.Germany
Italy – Austria-Hungary
Piedmont - Papal States
Piedmont - Modena
Piedmont - Parma
Italy – Austria-Hungary
Two Sicilies - UK
Russia - Sweden
Russia – Norway
Sweden – Russia
Sweden – Finland
Sweden - Finland
Finland – Russia
Russia – Finland
Finland - Russia
Russia - Finland
Finland - Russia
1948 – 1971
1958 – 1972
1848 – 1866
1858 - 1860
1848 - 1860
1848 - 1860
1866 – 1919
1831 - 1831
1851 - 1855
1945 - 1947
1854 - 1856
1918 – 1921
1854 - 1856
1917 – 1920
1938 – 1940
1941 - 1944
1944 - 1944
1945 - 1947
Note: claim dates are constrained by membership in the COW international system, limiting
these claims to interactions between recognized sovereign states. Claims can not begin until
both states qualify for system membership, and claims are considered to end with the loss of
system membership.
34
Table 2: Development, Democracy, and the Origins of Territorial Claims
A. Economic Development and Claims to Any Territory
Does state begin 1+ claim
during this year?
(1816-1945)
Does state begin 1+ claim
during this year?
(1946-2001)
Development level of state
Developed
No
412
Yes (%)
13 (3.1%)
Total
425
No
712
Yes (%)
7 (1.0%)
Total
719
Less Developed
2945
99 (3.3)
3044
1767
12 (0.7)
1779
Total
3357
112 (3.2)
3469
2479
19 (0.8)
2498
X2 = 0.04 (1 d.f., p < .83)
X2 = 0.61 (1 d.f., p < .44)
B. Economic Development and Claims to Economically Valuable Territory
Does state begin 1+ claim
Does state begin 1+ claim
during this year?
during this year?
(1816-1945)
(1946-2001)
Development level of state
Developed
No
421
Yes (%)
4 (0.9%)
Total
425
No
713
Yes (%)
6 (0.8%)
Total
719
Less Developed
2998
46 (1.5)
3044
1771
8 (0.5)
1779
Total
3419
50 (1.4)
3469
2484
14 (0.6)
2498
X2 = 0.85 (1 d.f., p < .36)
X2 = 1.36 (1 d.f., p < .25)
C. Political Democracy and Claims to Economically Valuable Territory
Does state begin 1+ claim
Does state begin 1+ claim
during this year?
during this year?
(1816-1945)
(1946-2001)
Regime type of state
Democracy
No
843
Yes (%)
22 (2.5%)
Total
865
No
1288
Yes (%)
7 (0.5%)
Total
1295
Other
2384
27 (1.1)
2411
804
6 (0.7)
810
Total
3327
49 (1.5)
3276
2092
13 (0.6)
2105
X2 = 8.76 (1 d.f., p < .01)
35
X2 = 0.33 (1 d.f., p < .57)
Table 3: Economic Development and the Origin of Territorial Claims
A. Claims to Any Territory
Model 1: 1816-1945
Model 2: 1946-2001
Variable
Constant
Coeff (S.E.)
- 3.69 (0.15)***
Coeff (S.E.)
- 4.03 (0.44)***
Economic development
(Energy consumption/capita)
- 0.58 (0.16)***
0.06 (0.04)
Democracy
0.90 (0.23)***
- 0.91 (0.54)*
Total population (1000s)
0.03 (0.01)***
.001 (0.01)
Militarization
(Military personnel/capita)
0.49 (7.13)
- 86.8 (68.3)
2963
-421.16
25.31 (4 d.f.)
p < .001
2087
-100.65
5.65 (4 d.f.)
p < .23
N:
Log Likelihood:
LR Chi-square:
B. Claims to Economically Valuable Territory
Model 1: 1816-1945
Model 2: 1946-2001
Variable
Constant
Coeff (S.E.)
- 4.58 (0.23)***
Coeff (S.E.)
- 4.53 (0.54)***
Economic development
(Energy consumption/capita)
- 0.62 (0.24)***
0.07 (0.04)
Democracy
1.17 (0.33)***
- 0.59 (0.63)
Total population (1000s)
0.02 (0.01)*
.004 (0.01)
Militarization
(Military personnel/capita)
6.95 (7.59)
- 101.1 (84.5)
N:
Log Likelihood:
LR Chi-square:
2963
-225.04
16.08 (4 d.f.)
p < .01
* p < .10, ** p < .05, *** p < .01.
36
2087
-76.88
4.20 (4 d.f.)
p < .38
Table 4: Development, Democracy, and the Militarization of Territorial Claims
A. Economic Development and Claims to Any Territory
1+ MID over claim this year?
(1816-1945)
1+ MID over claim this year?
(1946-2001)
Development of challenger
Developed
No
341
Yes (%)
8 (2.3%)
Total
349
No
225
Yes (%)
10 (4.3%)
Total
235
Less Developed
4237
121 (2.8)
4358
1075
57 (5.0)
1132
Total
4578
129 (2.7)
4707
1300
67 (4.9)
1367
X2 = 0.28 (1 d.f., p < .60)
X2 = 0.25 (1 d.f., p < .62)
B. Economic Development and Claims to Economically Valuable Territory
1+ MID over claim this year?
1+ MID over claim this year?
(1816-1945)
(1946-2001)
Development of challenger
Developed
No
169
Yes (%)
3 (1.7%)
Total
172
No
151
Less Developed
1904
78 (3.9)
1982
390
18 (4.4)
408
Total
2073
81 (3.8)
2154
541
25 (4.4)
566
X2 = 2.10 (1 d.f., p < .15)
Yes (%)
7 (4.4%)
Total
158
X2 = 0.0001 (1 d.f., p < .99)
C. Political Democracy and Claims to Economically Valuable Territory
1+ MID over claim this year?
1+ MID over claim this year?
(1816-1945)
(1946-2001)
Regime type of challenger
Democracy
No
561
Yes (%)
9 (1.6%)
Total
570
No
303
Yes (%)
17 (5.3%)
Total
320
Other
1512
72 (4.6)
1584
238
8 (3.3)
246
Total
2073
81 (3.8)
2154
541
25 (4.4)
566
X2 = 10.19 (1 d.f., p < .001)
37
X2 = 1.40 (1 d.f., p < .24)
Table 5: Economic Development and the Militarization of Territorial Claims
Model 1: 1816-1945
Model 2: 1946-2001
Variable
Constant
Coeff (S.E.)
- 4.62 (0.60)***
Coeff (S.E.)
- 4.04 (0.99)***
Economic development
(Energy consumption/capita)
- 0.16 (0.20)
- 0.02 (0.07)
Democracy
- 0.57 (0.60)
- 0.24 (0.40)
Relative capabilities:
Rough parity (≤3:1)
Challenger stronger
0.75 (0.29)***
0.50 (0.36)
1.46 (0.51)***
1.07 (0.59)*
Salience of claimed territory
0.21 (0.06)***
0.13 (0.10)
Peace years
- 0.29 (0.06)***
- 0.24 (0.09)***
Spline(1)
- .002 (.001)***
- .001 (.001)*
Spline(2)
.001 (.0002)**
- .0007 (.0004)
Spline(3)
- .00001 (.00004)
- .00006 (.00006)
4668
-494.42
84.35 (9 d.f.)
p < .001
1358
-213.43
33.43 (9 d.f.)
p < .001
N:
Log Likelihood:
LR Chi-square:
* p < .10, ** p < .05, *** p < .01.
38